Surfing Injury

As you might have seen in my last blog, I surf. I'm defiantly not a professional, (in fact, nowhere near it!) which means I slipped up quite a bit at first. During slip up in particular, I slipped off my board and fell into the ocean. As I was paddling back to shore, the saltwater had gotten to my eyes, to they were blurry and I didn't see the child in the water in front of me. As I ran into him, we roll over and the shovel he was holding (a quite sharp one apparently) made a small cut into my shoulder. The cut was really small, more like a scrape, and was nothing serious, but at the sight of blood the child's father did panic a bit and so did I. The lifeguard examined both of us and nothing was wrong, even though the poor little boy was quite confused. My slip up was absolutely nothing compared to the one I saw happen once. I was sitting on the sand, watching the waves, when a surfer came into view. Nothing new, really. But then things took a turn. Another surfer dropped in on the guy's wave. One of them had to get off or they might risk colliding into each other. Neither budged. As they came closer and closer, I was beginning to think they would be alright until at the last moment, they hit each other. The both slipped off their boards, submerged in water. To my right were two lifeguards, their whistle in their mouths, ready in case.They weren't coming up. The lifeguards raced into the water just as one of the guys came into the surface, yelling. As they were dragged out, we discovered that one of the surfers was cut his forehead on the other guy's board. He was rushed to the hospital, and he was bleeding everywhere. I definatly hope not to experience something like that...

Surfing

Pretty much all of my family had surfed before. Except me. So, a few years ago, I persuaded my brother to take me with him on one of his surf sessions. We had just gotten new surfboards the week before in preparation for summer, and we were excited to use them. It was early morning and the swell was good, so we paddled out. I was taught a few of the fundamentals of surfing and after a few tumbles into the waves, I slowly got it. As the day ended, I could surf properly without plunging headfirst into the waves. I decided to go surfing with him every Wednesday and Friday for the rest of the summer. As summer was coming to a close, I could master most of the beginner's tricks. The following summer, I joined a surfing camp. The camp was a ten minute walk to the ocean, and instructors taught me all they could about surfing. It was amazing.

The Ranch

A few years ago, during the Spring, my family and I visited my great-aunt and uncle in their ranch in Illinois. It was a unusual and exciting experience. The ranch was in the middle of a large terrain, almost in the middle of nowhere. The ranch itself had cattle, horses, sheep, anything you could think of, and it was amazing. We stayed their for about a week or so, and we filled up our free time with riding the horses, kayaking on the nearby lakes, hiking, and boating. We also tried water skiing. My great-aunt and uncle had bought the equipment, when they had bought the ranch, but as they grew older, they found that they didn't want to try it anymore. So, they persuaded us to try.  Unlike my first experience kayaking, (my last blog) I failed many, many times at water skiing. And to be honest, it takes time to learn a sport like that. But after numerous fails, and water stuck in my ear, I learned to balance. And once you really get the hang of it, it's really fun. Some days, we would waterski all day. Now, we waterski every time we go there.

Kayaking

Two summers ago, my family and I went on a vacation to Big Bear for about two weeks. During this time, we did various things, including hiking, biking, pretty much everything you could do at Big Bear. Near the cabin we were staying at, happened to be a kayak rental shack. I had never been kayaking before, so I as exciting when my brother announced that we would go. As I sat in the shaking kayak, I was a bit worried that I would tumble in head first into the water. Of course, I could swim, but the water wasn't all that warm this summer so the chilly water might give me a bit of a shock. As we slowly rowed away, I felt like I was getting used to it. Eventually I could even do most of the stuff that the pros could do! As we were turning back to the docks though, my brother leaned a bit too much to his left side, and he flipped into the water. Although very wet, he managed to get out of the kayak fine and swam up to the surface cracking up. To this day, we still tease him about his horrible balance. I was glad I decided to try kayaking, and I still do every summer.

Halloween Prank

Halloween is coming up, and with it comes the time of trick or treating and candy giving. I always have fun on Halloween, because something weird or funny always happens...
One year, I was going trick-or-treating with a bunch of my friends. So, we met up at Starbucks then started off into our neighborhood with our buckets in our hands. That year, I was a Greek goddess and the others consisted of cats, zombies, and hippies. The first house we went to gave us three fistfuls of candy each plus a cookie. It was a great start. The next houses we went to gave us more or less the same amount and we ecstatic about our progress. The neighborhood was well known for candy giving, and we were in luck, although, we really don't eat most of it. We walked up to the next house and one of my friend's knocked on the door. It was I while before someone opened the door and when they did, an elderly man opened the door. We asked trick-or-treat and after he had a good look at us, he scooped his hand in his bowl, and tossed in our buckets... rocks. Hard, heavy, rocks. When the friend who had knocked asked why he would give us rocks, he grabbed him by the shoulder, shoved him in the house, and promptly shut the door behind him. We were shocked and started yelling for help while we hitting our fists against the door. Then, when we found an adult to call 911, he door opened and there stood our friend grinning with the elderly man next to him also with a bemused smile. He quickly explained that the man was his grandfather and he had had this idea to scare us with this prank. His grandfather, an old prankster, had agreed to the idea and pulled it off. We laughed our heads off and to make it up for us, he had made some brownies and let us eat before moving on. In the end, our day was successful, we got pranked and laughed our heads off.
Lesson: Always be careful of the pranks that your friends might pull on Halloween.

Another Blow Up

As a child, I blew a lot of things up. I even had a reputation with the firefighters for a while! This experience was one of my weirdest...
I was three years old at the time when I was supposed to be sleeping in my room. I couldn't fall asleep so I slowly snuck past my parent's room and started to explore. I snuck past various rooms until I stopped at the kitchen to get a banana from the counter. The stove was on since my mom was making tea for herself and when I reached, I managed to push paper towel roles on the stove. I finally grabbed the banana and ran up to my room, leaving the fast increasing fire to burn. Immediately after, the fire alarms went off and my parents rushed down to investigate. Since I had done something remarkably similar about a year ago, my parents knew that I was the one who had done it. They called the fire department and we had to get out of the house until they arrived. When they did, they struggled to put it out since I had ignited it on a high setting which made the flames really big. After about four hours, the fire was out but the flames had spread to the hallway and almost to the living room. My parents actually found it funny that I set the house on fire again and in the same way. Later on, after the ashes were cleaned up my parents gave me another lesson on how to be careful around stoves and put up new baby gates. Thankfully I didn't do it again.
Lesson: Make sure you have a lot of baby gates around the kitchen or put bananas in a reachable place for children so they don't have to set your house on fire.

Lost in a Airport in Dubai

Every once in awhile, my family and I go to Dubai to visit my aunt and uncle. We always have a great time and the sights there are amazing. I rode my first camel there! But one time my cousin and I got lost...
It started when we were waiting for my uncle to come pick us up from the airport but he told us that he might be a bit late so we sat down on one of the seats there until he would arrive. Eventually, my mom got up to get coffee from a Starbucks in the airport and my cousin and I went with her since we had nothing else to do. After she got coffee, we made a quick stop at the restrooms. While I was waiting for my mom to get out, my little cousin thought she heard our uncle outside the restroom. Before I knew it, she had raced out of the bathroom. I was eight, while she was only six so she could get lost more easily. I quickly told my mom and rushed out to find her. Shouting her name and scrambling through the crowds, I searched everywhere until I came to my mom again. We decided that we should go back to the rest of our family in case she had went back there. But when she wasn't there either my dad went to tell a police officer. As the police officers and us searched the airport I frantically searched all over until, yep, I got lost too. I almost laughed. If you haven't noticed yet, our family gets lost quite frequently. Turning back towards the way I came from, I bumped into a ice cream shop in a corner of the airport. As I went towards it to ask for directions I saw a little familiar face eating a cone of ice cream sadly. It was my lost cousin. When she saw me, she smiled and ran up to me. Apparently, the owner of the shop had seen that she was lost and gave her free ice cream so she'd stop crying. As we thanked the shop owner I turned I saw my mom waving me over from afar. We reunited and everyone was happy that I'd found my cousin and just that minute, our uncle appeared in sight. In the end, everyone was happy and relieved.
Lesson: Make sure you either have a map of the airport your in or at least have ice cream.